Deuteronomy 30:10-14; Responsorial Psalm 69; Colossians 1:15-20;
Gospel Acclamation John 6:63 & 68; Luke 10:25-37

1. -- Lanie LeBlanc OP -
2. -- Dennis Keller OP -
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5. --(Your reflection can be here!)

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        I find it painful to read this Sunday’s Gospel selection and any news headlines.   Why are some people so confused about caring for one another?    Why don’t they understand that how to live in accordance with God’s will/plan/expectations etc. is embedded in everyone’s hearts? Why is it so hard to understand that “they” and “people” are often so similar to, if not actually,  “we” and “us”?

        Individually and collectively, each and every one of us, needs to make the time to do some soul searching.   Christians need to get back to reading the Scriptures with new eyes and ears, along with an attitude to change our focus and habits.   Who really is our God?   For Christians, how does Jesus tell us how to act?   What do we have to do to change our little spot in the world to make ourselves, it, and those who share it with us, more in harmony?

        Lots of questions.   Only God or however you call on the Divine Presence, is omniscient and has all the answers.   Seek and you shall find!

Blessings,

Dr. Lanie LeBlanc OP

Southern Dominican Laity

lanie@leblanc.one

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Fifteenth Sunday of Ordered Time

July 13, 2025

This Sunday’s readings demonstrate a classic response of a person whose heart is closed to any thought that conflicts with his own. It is a common response to information that does not fit our pre-conceived ideas. Focusing our attention on the rantings of people who think like us, we see we fall in line without much thought or discernment about the content of the rant. Likewise, when someone with ideas and notions conflict with ours, the jump to judgment is instantaneous. There is no moment of analysis, of looking at the details, of fact checking. It is like we have hearts of stone off which bounce off new thoughts.

The message in the Hebrew Scriptures is repeated over and over. That message is that freedom is always in peril. Pharoah converted a thriving Hebrew people into slaves whose lives depended on blind acceptance of orders. The Assyrians attempted to capture and subjugate the Tribes. Camped below the walls of Jerusalem, their army was felled not by sword or arrow, but by a quick acting plague. The Babylonians captured Jerusalem and the nation of Juda twice. The first time a few were taken into exile. The second time, after the assassination of the Babylonian governor, they returned and leveled Jerusalem. The slaughter was massive of men, women, and children. Not only humans, but also livestock and fowl. That began a seven-decade exile of the prominent, educated, and officials of Juda.

In ever captivity and occupation, it was the intervention of God that brought release of the nation. The Christian Scriptures went further. It was not only physical liberation, but liberation of the spirit, the mind, the heart of humanity that was liberated by the intervention of the Father. The Father sent the Son to be one of us. That is how Christianity began.

In the first reading, Moses tells the people they should not look for some magical, extraordinary appearance as a guide to successful living. It did not need to come from heaven, from across the seas. It was already in their minds and hearts. They needed only to tap into it.

Jesus ran into a lot of resistance to his preaching, his miracles, and his life. So many wanted to put him down, to reveal him as a charlatan. Or maybe a sorcerer, a representative of Satan. That is the gospel story this Sunday. A scholar of the law – a Scribe or a Pharisee, or one of the Priestly clan– wanted to prove Jesus was a fake. The question is a loaded one. To inherit means that someone is from the house of a person who has an inheritance. Inheritance is a right by birth, not by the justice in which a person conducts his life. An eternal life typically for a Jew would mean land. This eternal life appears only infrequently in the Hebrew Scriptures. Its first appearance in the book of Daniel.

In response, Jesus quotes a passage from the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 6, verse 5. But he does something else. Jesus adds a quote from the book of Leviticus (chapter 19 verse 18) that adds an AND. The commandment Jesus conflates puts love of neighbor in a par with loving God. This is a both and. This is not a binary, this one or that one. The law student did not want to appear shamed. So comes the question, “who is my neighbor?” Jesus’ answer turns the whole scene around. We know about the priest walking by in fear of becoming unclean for seven days, preventing him from leading services. We know about the Levite who must have feared there were bad people who were hanging around waiting to attack another victim who might have stopped to check on the man. The Jericho-Jerusalem road was a bloody trail, frequented by several bands of robbers. Then comes the Samaritan who sees him and tends to him. That Samaritan had credit with an inn keeper and had compassion for the beaten, naked man.

So, what is this story? We feel pretty good we would have stopped by to help. That is the repeated story in our country. Someone helps another in trouble. But what is the teaching we should take into our hearts and live by?

A couple of thoughts: The Good Samaritan story makes the standard of Christian love from caring for one who deserves my love, to one of gift-giving to one who has no claim on my care. It is not the one we care for who is our neighbor. It is we who become a neighbor when we care for someone whom we do not know, did not know existed before our encounter.

The lesson that demands we treat as person everyone we encounter. However frightening the circumstances, we treat as persons the alien in our midst, the naked, the defenseless, the broken with compassion. This is a transmutation from Law to Gospel. That is our goal. It remains a work in process throughout our lives.

Dennis Keller@PreacherExchange.com <Lay Dominican, Raleigh, NC>

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Volume 2 is for you. Your thoughts, reflections, and insights on the next Sundays readings can influence the preaching you hear. Send them to preacherexchange@att.net. Deadline is Wednesday Noon. Include your Name, and Email Address.
-- Fr. John